


in the all-night dances

by harborshore



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe, Greek and Roman Mythology - Freeform, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-15
Updated: 2015-11-15
Packaged: 2018-05-01 20:02:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,015
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5218982
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/harborshore/pseuds/harborshore
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Being the god of wine and debauchery, the living incarnation of Bacchus, meant Grantaire was not likely to remember every human he came across. but he remembered this one, oh, did he ever. </p><p>Enjolras, heir to the throne of a city but more likely to declaim revolutionary poetry in the square, continually in disgrace, had first come to the fires of Bacchus six months ago.</p>
            </blockquote>





	in the all-night dances

**Author's Note:**

  * For [goshemily](https://archiveofourown.org/users/goshemily/gifts).



> Happy birthday, most most darling of all. This story wouldn't - like so many of mine - exist without you.
> 
> The title is from C.K. Williams' translation of The Bacchae, because this story would not exist without his incandescent translation.

Being the god of wine and debauchery, the living incarnation of Bacchus, meant Grantaire was not likely to remember every human he came across. but he remembered this one, oh, did he ever. Enjolras, heir to the throne of a city but more likely to declaim revolutionary poetry in the square, continually in disgrace, had first come to the fires of Bacchus six months ago. Grantaire had kissed him then, tasting the first desire off of Enjolras’ lips, but he’d been pulled away by his maenads before they had taken it any further. He’d looked back over his shoulder to see Enjolras still looking at him, eyes dark, cheeks flushed. I’ll come back for you, Grantaire had thought.

So he had, but apparently Enjolras was in prison. 

"He finally infuriated his father enough, hm?" Grantaire said, smiling at the fruit-seller he’d cornered to get more information. He could feel his maenads humming outside the city walls; this was not a city that worshiped Bacchus, but that didn’t mean Grantaire didn’t have any power. Far from it.

"Yes, I suppose," the fruit-seller said. "I really don’t know much about it." She looked like she wished she knew more.

"Well, thank you for your time," Grantaire, said, bending low over her hand, and looking up at her through the curls that fell over his eyes. She blushed, and he let go of her hand, still smiling.

—

Getting Enjolras out of jail proved a little more complex than Grantaire expected. His charm got him as far as the prison kitchen, where he talked the cook out of food and also found out the routines of the guards. It wasn’t that he couldn’t just break the prison in half and pull Enjolras out; he could feel the dammed-up power coming from the temple of his thatthe city had chosen to close. But he felt some stealth was called for. Something in him didn't want to frighten Enjolras.

He gave himself credit for a well-executed plan once he stood in front of the cell and pushed back the uniform cap (the guard he’d stolen it from was asleep in a closet, very drunk) and saw Enjolras’ eyes widen with surprise and pleasure, not fear.

"I remember you," he said. "You’re—" He licked his lips.

"I am," Grantaire said graciously. "Would you like to get out of there?"

"My father wouldn’t like it," Enjolras said, mouth quirking. "He said I ought to stay in here until I learned my place."

"No, probably not," Grantaire said, holding out his hand. "Still. We never really finished our conversation last time."

Enjolras eyes were very dark. “If you can get me out of here,” he said, “we’ll finish it.”

"We could overthrow the throne, too, while we’re at it," Grantaire offered casually. There were vines growing on the bars of the cell now. Enjolras glanced at them, but Grantaire smiled and his gaze swung back, like a compass seeking true north. 

"I forgot you could do that," Enjolras said.

"I can do a lot more," Grantaire said, and he did want to show Enjolras, he wanted to make him see. 

"I already believe in you," Enjolras said, smiling a little now. "You don’t have to astonish me."

"Perhaps I want to," Grantaire said, and the bars of the cell parted like butter when the vines took hold and pulled.

Enjolras stepped out to him and took Grantaire's hand, breathing in sharply when Grantaire turned it over and kissed his palm, then his wrist. 

"Shall we overthrow the king, then?" he asked, mouth moving against Enjolras’ skin. 

"I—do not care much, at this point," Enjolras said.

"Or shall I make of you a maenad?" Grantaire murmured, drawing his head down to kiss him deeply.

"Only if I’ll be your favorite," Enjolras said, something arch in his voice. Grantaire liked it.

"As if you could ever be anything but," he said.

Enjolras' smile was pleased, and Grantaire reached to cover it with his own once more, loving the bend in that proud neck, so lovely for him.

"Where shall we go next?" he murmured, fingers slipping easily around Enjolras' waist. "The palace, as I promised?" Or my temple, he thought, blinking at the vision of it rising from the ground. What couldn't he do, with the banked fires of Enjolras restless in his arms?

"I'd as soon leave here," Enjolras said, gasping a little as Grantaire's hands snuck up under the loose shirt he was wearing. "I don't - I can't care, I don't want to."

"I must do something about my temple," Grantaire said musingly, mostly to himself. "It can't be left as it is."

"Must you be here to do it?" Enjolras said. "Only-" and his eyes, oh, of course. The fire of the maenads was truly upon him, if only a little just yet. Grantaire smiled.

"We can go," he said, and took his first fill of Enjolras' lovely throat, three kisses that left marks that wouldn't fade for days. 

\--

Enjolras had grown insistent by the time they reached outside the city walls. Grantaire amused himself along the way by insisting on secrecy and subterfuge, sneaking around corners, holding Enjolras behind him (never letting him go) and then pushing him just ahead. They were nearly discovered once, someone stopping to look at Enjolras and then at Grantaire, but Grantaire kissed Enjolras and the good sir blushed a deep, dark red and went on his way.

Shame was useful. Personal shame was even more useful sometimes. Not that Grantaire knew what that was like anymore; he could only vaguely recall the deep self-loathing he used to engage in before - before this. 

"Grantaire," Enjolras said. "Bacchus." And oh, that was sweet indeed, that name on Enjolras' lips. Grantaire took it from him with a kiss, made him say it again by starting on his buttons. Slow, slow, kissing him all the way. 

Enjolras truly would be his favorite. Grantaire blinked back the heady wave rising within him, slightly, enough to ask "Did you always want this?"

"Ever since I first saw the ruins of your temple," Enjolras said, and it was honesty fed by the fire, Grantaire would have seen a lie. 

"I will always give it to you," he said, and that was honesty returned, a more surprising thing.  
Enjolras smiled, a heady sight, and it took everything Grantaire had to not lay him down right there, in the middle of Main Street, for all the world and the king to watch, and raise his new temple around them. He pushed on instead, towards the city gates.

"Are you certain you don't want to breach city hall?" he said teasingly, close to Enjolras' ear. "I could tear the walls down and have you in front of your father and his council." He didn't think that would be what Enjolras wanted, not for their first time together, but giving him the possibility to think about, oh. Grantaire could feel him shiver.

"They are meeting right now," Enjolras said, which was almost a yes, "but i'd rather." He swallowed. "The forest, Grantaire. your forest. I kept thinking about it after the fires that time."

"Of course," Grantaire murmured. "I'll take you there."

He charmed the gate guard into not recording anything in his book of entries and exited from the city, and as the heavy gates fell shut behind them, he saw something loosen in Enjolras' shoulders, and felt a little easier as a result. Enjolras did want to leave. He didn't just come with Grantaire out of desire and the maenad fire, he wished to leave his city behind.

"How far away is your camp?" Enjolras murmured.

Grantaire blinks. Camp? Oh. "You must be thinking of the fires," he said. "They only happen at certain times; all forests are my forests, where enough dancers can be found. I live everywhere and nowhere."

"How far do we--" and Enjolras turned to look at him and his eyes were so very dark.

Grantaire started to smile. "Not very far at all," he said. "Darling, not very far at all."

He pulled Enjolras close and reached and they tumbled into a clearing Grantaire remembered from a month earlier, from a dance that had set the stars alight with a deeper fire, had made the forest sing around them. The grass was soft, moss growing up through it, and the olive trees leaned low. 

"Will this do?" he said, and he didn't remember ever caring quite so much about the answer.

Enjolras' smile was warm, open. "It will do," he said, and bent his neck under Grantaire's hand, opened his mouth for a kiss, let himself be eased down upon the ground when Grantaire moved him so.

His hair was very bright against the dark green moss. Grantaire carefully pulled his arms above his head, pressing them down lightly. Enjolras' shirt, prison-grey, vanished under Grantaire's caress. He had quite lost his patience with the buttons.

"Your skin," he murmured, bending his head to follow where his hands had already touched. Enjolras' breathing sped up as Grantaire's mouth moved over his skin, biting, marking.

"Your mouth is like fire," he said, gasped, voice shallow and thready. "I can hardly--"

"You can," Grantaire said, lips moving over Enjolras' hip. "You can bear anything if I ask you, can't you?"

"Yes," Enjolras said immediately. "Anything, anything, oh--"

Grantaire had to move back up and stop his mouth; he was too much, too much for even a god to bear. Too lovely. 

"Would you take me in?" he said against Enjolras' lips, nipping at them, feeling as though he wanted to draw the breath from his lungs.

"I have," Enjolras said, sounding confused. "I have, you're everywhere."

Grantaire smiled. He was. "I mean inside," he said, and moved a hand to slide up Enjolras' thigh to his hips, baring them as he went. The grass was growing taller around them, vines dipping down from the trees to draw lines along Grantaire's back.

Enjolras turned red under his gaze, but his eyes were very dark, and he nodded, the eager "yes" spilling from his mouth into Grantaire's. 

"It will make you wild," Grantaire murmured, and Enjolras gasped when Grantaire made him ready, opening him. "Wild and mine," he promised, and Enjolras' hands were very tight in his hair.

"I want that," he said, and he was so sure; how was he always so sure? 

"You would choose me of your own free will," Grantaire said, and it was half a question.

"I've been yours since you kissed me by the fires," Enjolras said, and Grantaire had known that, but it was something to hear him say it.

"Say that again," he said, and it was a request and a command, all at once.

"Yours," Enjolras said, and his back arched so beautifully when Grantaire finally slid inside. "Yours, yours only, Bacchus," and he held Grantaire tightly to him.

“You will always be mine," Grantaire promised, and lost himself in Enjolras' arms, in his warmth. It took a long time and it was over in an instant; his power rose and rose and Enjolras clung to him, finding release over and over under Grantaire, taking him in like no one ever had been able to before.

In the city, the ground shook and the fires on the altar of the bricked-up temple started burning once more, but in the forest, the moss was soft and the vines were kind in their caresses.

"I thought it would burn more," Enjolras said, after. Grantaire smiled against his hair, tracing the marks on Enjolras' neck, his arms. 

"You burn already," he said. "You're mine enough, so you won't feel that as others might."

"Yours enough?" Enjolras said, shifting around in his arms so he was facing Grantaire. 

"Mine enough," Grantaire said, stroking his hair away from his eyes. "You're mine, Enjolras, bone and blood and soul. That means you'll carry the fire within you, too."

"And heart," Enjolras said, mouth quirking a little.

Grantaire swallowed. "And heart," he said. The night was warm, and held them until morning.


End file.
